Thursday, March 19, 2009

looking out my window at night

Drawn from memory. Click on the picture for a high resolution image.

I am attempting to recount a very short memory. The incident described in this post lasted, maybe, less than 20 seconds. The implications of this event has been difficult for me to integrate into my life. I’ve been terribly conflicted about the truth of this foggy incident. It could have been a dream, true enough. I cannot allow myself to discount that.

In January or February of 1993, I was living alone in a small house in rural Maine. I had been dealing with a hard break up, and I was in an fragile emotional state, and this is an important factor in this story.

The driveway of the house had one of those motion sensitive lights, and it was pretty common for the light to come on when a car drove by or a deer walked through the front yard at night. The bedroom window faced the driveway, and my bed was up against that window.

I was depressed during that chapter of my life, and sleeping poorly. But I woke up that night because a very bright light was shining in through the window above the bed. I sat up, propping myself up on my elbow, and looked out the window. I saw five spindly entities with skinny bodies and big black eyes. They were on the lawn walking toward the house. They were back-lit by a singular round bright shape. This light seemed oddly small.

My first drawing, done as a way to get my thoughts down on paper, and then hidden away in a drawer.

My response to this frightening image was to nonchalantly lay my head down on the pillow and promptly fall back asleep.

Shouldn't I have jumped out of bed screaming in terror? But instead I felt absolutely empty of emotion. It was almost as if I was somehow controlled. I calmly thought to myself, "Oh yes, they're here, let's just shut down and black out."

The illustration (above) seems to capture the memory as close as I possible.

Now, it’s important that I add this extra information. This memory is strangely vivid in a way that seems entirely different form a normal state of mind.

I saw something, but at the same time I truly do NOT think it happened in “this” reality. That may sound hard to grasp, but it is the only way I can honestly depict the experience.

It’s important to me that I try to describe this feeling.

Hmmm - how to use words - weirdly quiet - sort of a pressurized fish bowl - the deepest part of my psyche is displaced, and moved to the forefront - maybe the normal thought chatter in my head is turned off - maybe - kinda - sorta...

A distinct warping of my psyche, whatever that means.
This strange warped feeling shows up again a few years later as a key element in a funny dream involving a UFO.
Did it happen while sleeping, and I simply imagined everything? Was it just some sort of dream state? Maybe. That would be an easy way to sum it all up. I’ll add that, because of this strangely vivid state of mind was so weird, I do not fully trust this memory.

The next morning I had the image seared into my mind, and I could NOT imagine something so weird could be true. I simply dismissed it as some sort of dream. I will add that I don’t recall ever dreaming I was in my own bed. My dream imagery will always be somewhere else, never in surroundings that are exactly like my bedroom.

Could my fragile emotional state been a factor in this vivid image out my window? Was I simply so depressed that I created this scary delusion in my weakened mental condition? That night, was I somehow more susceptible to such a weird hallucination? Maybe.

This memory has a series of follow up stories. And each one is, for me, quite perplexing. I will continue to post more about this very curious event.

*     *    *

I try and articulate the process of doing two drawings of this event in this follow up post.
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Text added Oct 31, 2009

The night of this event I was reading Budd Hopkin's book INTRUDERS. It was right there on the bed, probably just inches from my pillow. This might subtract from the potential reality of the experience. I mean, this book is filled with scary descriptions of skinny gray aliens, and my fragile mind was obviously filled with that imagery as I fell asleep. Did these vivid images well up as some hypnogogic dream? I have no idea.
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Text added March 25th 2010


This is something that feels funny to try and articulate, and I didn’t add it when I posted this thing a little over a year ago.


I remember looking out my window, and looking past the five skinny beings, and being drawn to look at that light out in the small open field surrounded by tall trees along side my driveway.

I thought the light was unusually small, maybe the size of refrigerator. The bright light in the yard looked, to me, just like a movie light mounted on a very short stand, pointed right at me, and into my window.

I've drawn it (above) to match my memory. 

Now, here's where it gets weird. This matches a scene from the feature film COMMUNION, based on Whitley Streiber's book. There was a lot movie that bothered me, BUT, there was a scene where the actor Christopher Walken (playing Whitley) walks toward a bright light in a forest setting.
approx. 1:30:20 time count in the movie COMMUNION
In the film, it is supposed to be an alien craft, but if you look carefully, you can see it's just a big movie light pointed at the camera. When I saw this during the movie, I thought to myself: "Oh, that's a simple way to create this special effect."

I saw the movie sometime in the summer of 1992, and “seeing” the light out my window would have been early in 1993.

When I saw the bright light from my bed out the window, I literally saw that same kind of movie light, just like in the film, and I remember thinking, in those few seconds: "Oh, that's a simple way to create this special effect." I had a similar reaction when I saw the movie. I simply dismissed this as perfectly normal. There was nothing at all unusual about a movie light in my yard in the middle of the night, but at the same time - it was very odd.

Where do I go with this?

Is this just proof that it was nothing more than a dream? Or, did "they" somehow create a screen memory? It seems like “they”quickly scanned my brain, picked a screen image from the files in my memory banks, and implanted the image of the movie light. Okay, just typing that previous sentence was hard, what I wrote is a big leap, but it feels accurate.

Am I using this "movie light" image to reinforce my own belief that nothing happened, and it was just a dream. Or, is the overt sense of a screen memory telling me that something very strange actually happened?
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Here’s an email excerpt from Mac Tonnies:
“Sure, your recollections aren't as inexplicable or dramatic as some, but you've never claimed that they were. (I think I mentioned this in a comment on my blog, but I tend to think the episode with the five Grays really *was* a sort of waking dream, as I've experienced similar phenomena myself). But the point is that you're not making unsubstantiated claims and that your take on the UFO counterculture is articulate and worth hearing, even if one happens to disagree with it.”
I agree with Mac on some level, I think this didn’t literally happen, but I simply don’t know. That said, 18 years later, the memory still haunts me.
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Text added Oct. 2nd 2013

Presently, I feel that this event truly happened. I came to this conclusion because of that sensation I tried to describe in the essay above. I say this after some serious self examination of my own memories. That altered reality feeling has happened tome several more times, and each time it was very much part of a UFO memory. I wrote about these other experiences and how I reluctantly came to this conclusion, liked in a post titled Hyper-vivid Distorted Consciousness.

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17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fascinating, chilling.

Brave.

Great blog.

Mac said...

Nicely done.

dudivie said...

Now this is the first time statistically I doubt. Until when. Good writin.

Anonymous said...

The way the picture is drawn seems like the figures are actors on a stage watching an audience, or waiting for applause.

Were you the audience?

Or were you the "act?"

Curious.

Anonymous said...

All things considered, the greatest probability, and based on some of the things you noted, is that you may have had a hypnogogic hallucination, either as part of a "type 2 false awakening" or some other sleep related temporary disorder or possibly stress related anomaly in consciousness. But only you can be the judge of that--what is your best judgment as to whether the 20 second episode was actually, externally real, or, in turn, more dream-like? In other words, do you have a predisposition toward one (external) vs. the other (dream)?

I would be most interested in the related follow-up stories you noted above. I've included some links below that may or may not be either helpful or relevant to better understanding what may have occurred, but they could provide some tools or insights to explore the issues involved.

Hopefully, parts of the articles noted may be of some use in investigating what your experience may have been about, caused by, or mean. This is often a difficult area to clearly parse, or completely determine, but I wish you luck, commend you on your bravery in publicly disclosing this, and support your efforts in trying to better define these esoteric questions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnogogic
http://tinyurl.com/dxndo
http://tinyurl.com/yv3ovu
http://tinyurl.com/c3wc65
http://tinyurl.com/dzqnvn
http://tinyurl.com/acfou9
http://tinyurl.com/ccqxc8

Anonymous said...

Thi shadows are very nice.
n alive

Anonymous said...

Hello Mike,

This is a great blog!

Thankyou for sharing so eloquently what occured, as best you could without inferences or presumptions. I look forward to reading your other entries.

~ Susan

Anonymous said...

Hi Mike,

I understand where youre coming from RE your confusion as to whether the event was real, imagined, a dream or some kind of point inbetween. Maybe the reality that these events reside in cannot be pigeon-holed into our discovered states of conciousness.

Can you recall if the entities were definately walking or did they glide?

Excelent illustration, it really is very atmospheric.

Andy

Anonymous said...

Among other qualities that humans possess, I think that certain extraterrestrials are interested in harvesting our emotions. They are attracted to people who are particularly expressive. Also, they interfere in some people's lives to stage events that create drama. The chaotic feelings that result are of some value to the beings.

Anonymous said...

"Hmmm - how to use words - weirdly quiet - sort of a pressurized fish bowl - the deepest part of my psyche is displaced, and moved to the forefront - maybe the normal thought chatter in my head is turned off - maybe - kinda - sorta..."

This is almost EXACTLY how I would describe my most profound experiences on DMT and other psychedelics. It is like a recognition that my mind is divided into 2 distinct parts, and they are continuously experiencing 2 different and separate aspects of the world. One part is dominant and that one I generally associate with "me". The other is greater, but somehow obscured by ordinary life. The sensation with DMT, is that the dominant part is "scrambled" in some way, and the greater secondary mind comes to the forefront.

I can't even adequately describe this "second mind" in any satisfactory way, because I'm using "first mind" language.

Anyway, this may come off as nonsense but it might be helpful. Thanks for sharing your stories.

Red Pill Junkie said...

"maybe the normal thought chatter in my head is turned off - maybe - kinda - sorta"

Carlos CastaƱeda described that as stopping the world —i.e. the ability to quiet down your 'inner dialogue', the one that keeps interpreting the elements around you. For Don Juan (CastaƱeda's alleged mentor) 'stopping the world' was a fundamental step for a sorcerer— or 'man of knowledge' as he preferred to call himself— in order to enter new mysterious worlds, as engaging and 'real' as our daily life.

This seems to be a fascinating blog. I'll be sure to keep my eye on it :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing Mike.

You wrote:

"Shouldn't I have jumped out of bed screaming in terror? But instead I felt absolutely empty of emotion. It was almost as if I was somehow controlled. I calmly thought to myself, "Oh yes, they're here, let's just shut down and black out."

I had a very similar experience during the mid seventies. For me however, I distinctly recall saying to myself very calmly "I know what this is" as I peered down at the foot of my bed staring at two or three 'visitors'. The implication being that it wasn't the first time, which is what is implied by your admittedly confusing statement.

And it wasn't.

It's not the first time I recall uttering things to myself, words I've never forgotten, while interacting with the whatever it was.

Keep it up and again, thanks.

~C

dudivie said...

I donno if You want other sotires ..you choose The comments!

http://www.ufocasebook.com/littlemen.html

muzuzuzus said...

I have found these posts after just reading your latest post and following links from there.
I LOVE the way you write which has an exploratory immediate feel to it!

What does 'dream' mean is my first question. How are we to define this term in a cultur/paradigm that violently separates the 'rational 'real world' from the feeling world, the Dreamtime

In the enforced 'education' system they would be on your case if you dared to 'daydream'---to have that natural state of consciousness. I HATED fukin school, and that was one of the reasons, because i wanted to be outside, and be allowed to daydream, but they rubbish all that as being a 'dreamer' and one MUST become a business cut-throat thug. THAT they love...

SO. All I am suggesting is that reality in the real real mysterious world, which of course includes the mindblowing universe also, is a continuum of deep potential of meaning and experience and exploration, and not this fukin controlled hell this bloody war mongering lying psychopathic ecocidal lot imposes on us. That is what I mean :)

Anonymous said...

hello - re your "polar post" the other day please email and i will definatley get back to you heres a direct link
ta
jamie d

Sakib said...

I think what you saw was a hallucination planted in your mind by interdimensional entities that seem to be active during the night, especially between midnight and 3am. I have had some dreams that are hyper vivid that seem to come from an external source.

Anonymous said...

Since childhood I've strattled my 2 realities. Now as an adult I appreciate "thier" compassion. As they come...and I know ...KNOW often when it's eminent ... I remind them saying aloud, "I'm not asleep yet guys" and then I fall fastly asleep. Even stranger...I get mad at myself for not being braver as I am during the day when I wish I could just be fully present! Just snippets of memories are left, flashes that will eventually either beg to keep space in my brain, or merely be added to a journal of a story log yet to be brought up again when triggered. Does that make sense? I have finally accepted what is happening to me years ago, the day I did...owls became even a BIGGER part if my existence. As you I can no longer ignore my purpose here. Yet, I often wonder,,, by who's plan am I being guided.so many questions, so many tangents on this path, but still... to be part of it all.... gratefully humbled, with occasional moments of heart pounding fear of loosing my own sanity.